As part of its overall agenda to reform the public enterprises sector and raise much-needed revenues for the government, the NITI Aayog will soon recommend a fresh set of state-run firms for strategic sale.
“We will soon examine some new cases for strategic disinvestment and send our recommendations to the government,” The Economic Times on Monday quoted a senior official as saying.
The view within the government’s think tank — NITI Aayog – is that the Government can go below 51% in specific cases.
The Cabinet has approved a clutch of companies for strategic sales, including some hotel properties of ITDC. However, the progress has been slow.
During 2015 Budget, the Narendra Modi government had unveiled the move to resume the strategic sale programme . It had said that specific sectors would be kept out of the plan. Strategic sale refers to transfer of management control and ownership.
The NITI Aayog has called for implementing the road map on closing select loss-making state-run firms and strategic disinvestment of 20 public sector undertakings which have been identified for such sale.
It maybe mentioned that the NITI Aayog had identified a clutch of companies among 74-loss making PSUs for closure, while it has decided on strategic disinvestment in some loss-making enterprises. It has submitted two lists of PSUs with detailed analysis for strategic disinvestment.
